Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

[Solder Boy]

Wow... I must have been living under a rock or something... it's come to my attention that Seagate has bought out Maxtor, and then I find out that Fujitsu stopped making desktop IDE drives back in 2001 stating that they feel the market is moving towards laptop use only.. ( um ya okay)

So now as far as I know only Western Digital and Seagate are the main players now... not sure if IBM/Hitachi is still around.

[dood]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

Seagate and WD are the main players. Hitachi still makes desktop drives... Fujitsu makes SCSI only in the desktop market

[Topcat]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

Fujitsu makes SCSI only in the desktop market

Yes, and I love them!! bastards are indestructible, have a full 5yr warranty, and are damn fast!

[gonzo0815]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

Hm wonder abouth Samsung. I buy ATM only Samsung HDD`S, nothing else (except WD 10000.rpm drives and may be Hitachi). They have given me the last trouble from all vendors since i can remeber.
Well Fujitsu`s IDE HDD`s werrent bad, but a litle slow, compared with the competitors at that time.

[willawake]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

its just mergers and acquisitions. most markets are becoming like this, have to be BIG to survive these days.

i have seen even some companies merge just to become big enough to go public. how sad. some of the best companies either have been always owned by a family or small group of main shareholders or they go public and later buy back their stock and delist. why is that?

well when you are a public company or a major part of your stock is owned by venture capitalists you become a slave to the profit line. You are expected to provide increased profit year on year. It is not something good, some company development can take many years and then pay off very big. During some periods you have to suffer in order for that development to take place, perhaps having sunk huge amounts of cash into the development in the meantime. And when it pays off do you want to share that with venture capitalists anyway. Do you want shareholders telling you what to do.

What happens anyway with these mergers in the hard disk industry. Does the consumer get a better deal? nope. There is also decreased competition. Imagine if Intel and AMD merged..........

[Topcat]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

LOL Will.... I wonder what company will try to gobble badcaps.net up.... Ohh God, the thought of AMD and Intel merging....where's my commodore64....

[willawake]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

LOL Will.... I wonder what company will try to gobble badcaps.net up....

i aint gonna give you any big ideas......

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

Lelon?

[pentium]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

Topcat, if someone bought the site, you yould be rich.

What is Choyo offers to buy in a joint purchase with GSC?

[Shroomie]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

The problem I see with a decreasing number of HDD manufacturers is that they can become more lax on quality, and more "asshole-ish" regarding returns. I've never seen "2-inch foam rubber", so I have a Seagate sitting here that failed after six months, yet hasn't made the trip back for RMA...

[willawake]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

do they accept returns in their "sea shell" cases or do they require the foam also?

[Solder Boy]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

I don't know about Seagate.. but I just RMA'd a WD 40 GB drive, the replacement arrived yesterday and I sent the defective one back in the box that WD used along with the funky plastic anchor they used.

[Shroomie]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

Good to know, Solder Boy...Might try that.

do they accept returns in their "sea shell" cases or do they require the foam also?

You need the foam rubber either way, I guess. They tell you that, anyway. Doesn't mean they won't take it otherwise, but I haven't been willing to bet on it.

[dood]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

I've never had an RMA denied due to inadequate packing... Not even through Seagate. I think as long as you pack it well, you'll be fine.

[pentium]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

Makes me think why Kalok drives never caught on.
Oh yeah, They sucked.

It's a "be big or get eaten" computer world out there. These days, there is no chance that a small company can start making drives and expect a jump to fame. Bigger companies have absorbed these smaller companies.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

Well, computers are mass products, thus the bigger the cheaper. This is especially true fore HDD`S. IDE HDD`s are that cheap, but the plant`s are not. I never had any issue with any if the manufacturers in replacing bad drives. I am shure, they calculated a lot of replacement drives into the bill. Acordingly to the spec sheet of Maxtor, they have had a tolerable DOA rate about a few percents (for IDE & SATA drives only, SCSI is another story (0,00x%) ).

[kc8adu]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

Makes me think why Kalok drives never caught on.
Oh yeah, They sucked.

they continued to suck after they were renamed xebec.
at least they would run long enough to recover data if they were refrigerated awhile!

[Rainbow]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

I've seen only one of them - dead on the shelf - Kalok Octagon

[willawake]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

i only got one drive that was showing many errors from new (WD 120) i still test them all though.

[willawake]

Re: Hard drive manufacturers dwindling

no wait i just installed a new seagate 7200.9 200gb which was sitting on my shelf for months and that sounds like crap. sounds like it is unbalanced or something. damn thing went through the seatools quick test and the result was not "fail" but "unsupported!!!!!" wtf. anyway i will have to abuse it somewhat to get successful replacement with the shop.......any ideas?